While the musician declined a request for an interview about the “Harlem Shake” YouTube explosion, he appears to be generally in favor of the video spinoffs, embedding them on his Tumblr and Tweeting links to his favorites. Meanwhile, a link on his website goes to the track’s iTunes sale page, and his show at New York’s Webster Hall tomorrow has sold out (except for VIP tickets), so the omnipresence of “Harlem Shake” hasn’t hurt business. His bio on the Big League Tour site bills Baauer as “The love child of Brooklyn and the Internet,” which turned out to be pretty prescient.

The Harlem Shake originally referred to a dance that started in the ’80s in the New York neighborhood of the same name, and was later popularized in the early 2000s, which involved a lot more shoulder action and actual rhythm.

As for the meme, the video begins with a single helmeted dancer grooving alone in a room while others act disinterested, until the chorus kicks in, then cut to everyone doing every move in the book but the original Harlem Shake.

In decades past, dance moves were learned through direct contact or TV and took longer to spread; now, moves can be communicated almost instantly and overwhelmingly via YouTube. Thus, as with the Harlem Shake, dance crazes can seem simultaneously hot and overdone at the same time. (Hence the call by some to stop committing meme murder and retire the “Harlem Shake” already.)

See what all the fuss is about, in these example clips:

The most-viewed spinoff, according to YouTube:

The Georgia football team (Note the player doing his drills out of formation. Then note the panda.)

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.